Proverbs and sayings about May HORIZONTALLY: 2. May will deceive - in ... will leave.4 ....
“Each growth of the spirit needs to be weighed down by circumstances.
There is an old legend that precious stones are born from human suffering.
So it is, and therefore, when I say, burden Me, I do not offer a sacrifice, but only increase the strength of the spirit.
(Hierarchy, 38)
Meaning of Suffering
What is suffering?
Causes of suffering?
What causes suffering?
The purpose of suffering
Can anyone save us from suffering?
How to overcome suffering?
The essence of overcoming suffering?
Does suffering make sense?
What is suffering ?
Everyone suffers - those who have done a lot of evil, and innocent children, and young people who have not yet had time to taste life. People suffer in body- from hunger, cold, disease and overwork.
Suffer in soul from slander and envy, from themselves and from others, from neighborhood with their neighbors, they come out in anguish of loneliness and incomprehensibility, poisoned by the bitterness of disappointment, the torments of deceived love or grief for the loss of loved ones.
How many difficult minutes the consciousness of its imperfection causes us, as well as the imperfection of the surrounding world.
Causes of Suffering ?
The question of human suffering has occupied the minds of the best thinkers of mankind at all times. The greatest efforts were made to solve it.
Only knowledge of the law of Causes and Effects (Karma) and the law of Reincarnations brought clarity to this difficult problem.
We call suffering the feeling of displeasure that we experience when reality does not meet our desires. By reality we mean external circumstances like poverty, sickness, hunger, cold and our moral actions, our actions, which often contradict our highest desires.
The source of suffering usually lies in man's deviation from the laws of nature, both physical and spiritual. Or our desires are bad, contrary to reality, the nature of things, the nature of man. Or vice versa, the apparent reality contradicts our good wishes and we suffer thus because of the good. But this is because reality itself has been perverted by the evil desires of man.
Our actions contradict our highest desires - "the good that I want, I do not do, but the evil that I do not want, I do", and then we experience inner suffering - the torment of conscience.
Therefore, it is necessary to study the Cosmic Laws of the Universe, which reveal the true meaning of suffering.
What are these laws?
In the language of biology and sociology- these are the laws of life, the preservation of the genus and species, society and the individual.
In the language of ethics- these are cosmic laws - the laws of love, purity, justice and reverence for what is above us.
In the language of religion are the commandments of God.
Suffering,in most cases, is deserved consequence violations of the Cosmic Laws.
So, let's list the causes of suffering:
- Ignorance or Lack of desire to know something.
Every grief or suffering is proof that one or another law of life has been violated.
According to the Law of Karma, we suffer as a result of our unwise or negative actions from the past.
In addition, a person forgets about his Divine Origin and about the lofty mission that Christ expressed in the words: “But you must become perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”
This state should be striven for in all circumstances of life and in all professions, whether a priest, a millionaire or an auxiliary worker.
Every drop of suffering is the result of our own
negative thoughts, words, desires, actions and efforts in the past.
- Desiresand lust or passion of man
A person is filled with all sorts of desires and desires, and most of them are aimed at achieving a variety of earthly benefits. The coolest cars, huge mansions, mink coats, iPhones, cool smartphones, etc.
Intemperance in meeting needs physical nature human can cause incurable diseases.
- Bad qualities and habits
Bad qualities and habits lead to suffering. Immoderation in eating and drinking, or, in other words, gluttony and drunkenness. In this case, people create suffering for themselves in the form of illnesses, not only in this life, but also for the distant future.
Diseases cannot always be overcome by a person in one life, just as the totality of all negative Karma, generously accumulated by him in his previous lives, cannot be overcome in one life. Therefore, they can then appear in the next incarnations. At present, people suffer from many diseases, the causes of which were laid down already in the past centuries.
- Lust for property
The passion for possession leads a person to countless crimes, murders and wars, deceptions. And all this in order to seize the blessings,
that give only a brief moment of joy.
A person must realize that not material goods are a constant value, but exclusively spiritual wealth. And Christ taught:“What good is it for a man if he conquers the whole world, but destroys his own soul.”
Earthly existence is given to us not for the purpose of accumulating wealth,
but for the expansion and development of our consciousness.
- Attachments
Attachments are one of the main causes of human suffering!
Matter becomes a factor of suffering for one who is attached to it. Getting rid of attachments depends on consciousness and on the attitude to things. A beggar can also suffer because of the desire to have money.
"Learn to own without a sense of ownership" -said in the Teaching of Living Ethics. Whoever has been able to achieve this quality can dispose of wealth without being internally attached to it. No one is forbidden to acquire property, on the contrary, everyone is encouraged to live as normal as possible.
Suffering -is a cosmic necessity for the development of human consciousness!
Man develops only through suffering. Only through tensionmaybe the growth of the Spirit.
It is only when we plunge into suffering and misfortune that an elementary desire for bliss and joy awakens in us.
A person who is not spiritually developed experiences mainly physical suffering - the suffering of his body.
A person who experiences spiritual and mental suffering, for example, remorse, then this is already a sign of the growth of the human spirit and awakened consciousness.
What causes suffering?
Suffering in this world not there is only evil: without it, man would turn into an animal. A person can overcome suffering with love and creativity, but his own suffering is alleviated when a person begins to feel compassion for another.
Suffering teaches us not to do to others what we don't want to do to ourselves.
Suffering is for us a source of moral values and positive spiritual acquisitions, it leads us to faith, love and spiritual strength. We live on this earth in order to work on the beauty of our soul, and life is a huge workshop in which the soul is prepared for the new heaven and new earth.
Suffering leads not only to strength, but also to wisdom.
The purpose of suffering
The Living Ethics states that grief and suffering are the best purifiers. They are also the best way to shorten the path of self-improvement.
Woe has a great educational value for a person and becomes a teacher, helping us to confidently reach the finalearthly purpose, namely, subjugation of the lower "I" supreme and manifestationDivinity in us.
Experiencing from life to life all kinds of suffering, a person gradually understands the cause of his torment and, in the end, begins to beware of repeating those actions that give rise to the causes of his torment.
In this way, suffering is an, a stimulus that motivates a person to take action. Having stood in sufferings, sorrows and struggle, the soul comes out of them enriched with experience and psychic energy.
And even if the soul is again defeated in the struggle with its lower nature, nevertheless, thanks to suffering, it is gradually purified and learns. By avoiding repeated mistakes, we are thereby freed from suffering.
How to overcome suffering
The best way to overcome suffering - The path of the Golden Mean. This is the only path leading to the gradual reduction of suffering and, ultimately, liberation from it. Therefore, the Buddha renounced both royal wealth and monastic asceticism for both paths led to extremes and excesses.
A person needs to learn to free himself from the slavery of his desires and passions. Only then will he come to the middle path, capable of reducing human suffering. This path of renunciation through the gradual, prudent overcoming of desires.
One should never forcibly wean oneself from anything, since the recurrence of passion can be stronger than the passion itself before.
It is impossible to overcome the manifestations of instinct through asceticism, since they are an expression of vital energy, which should be gradually transformed into spiritual energy, which, however, will only then lead to the desired results when a person goes The path of the golden mean.
Bad qualities and inclinations must be eradicated from the mind gradually, without coercion and without hope of immediate results.
An understanding must mature in a person that the needs of the body must obey the needs of the spirit, and not vice versa!
To be free from suffering, you need to stop creating new causes for its occurrence.
A frivolous escape from suffering- this is when people, or rather most of people strive to drown out the bitterness of life with a moment of pleasure, to forget themselves with the madness of a "feast during the plague" or dancing on the edge of death. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die."
Can anyone spare a man from suffering?
The law of cause and effect proves that there is no way to save another person from suffering, since everyone must atone for their own sins and mistakes.
Avoid neither suffering nor joy! Learn to suffer without complaining!
Don't be a pessimist in spite of grief and need, but be an optimist and keep fighting!
To those who doubt the eternal Retributive Justice, the Buddha said the following:
“Once you did the same evil that your enemy does to you today, voluntarily or involuntarily. So be patient. You atone only for your own guilt."
The essence of overcoming suffering?
The essence of overcoming suffering is vtransformationlowerqualitiesvhigher.
To overcome suffering, it is necessary to develop the strength to resist temptations and weaknesses. You need to learn to control yourself, control your desires, passions and refuse them.
try to make them good .
An approximate list of opposite qualities that we must transform in ourselves:
Hate is love and forgiveness.
Heartlessness and ruthlessness - compassion, kindness. Vengefulness is nobility.
Envy is generosity.
Stinginess is generosity.
Selfishness - altruism and love for one's neighbor.
Intolerance is tolerance.
Irritation - calmness.
Pickiness and criticism - understanding, benevolence.
Talkativeness - silence and restraint.
Does suffering make sense?
For a person who has embarked on the path of self-improvement, it is important to know that arrogance, irritability, resentment, curiosity are the weaknesses that cause the greatest difficulty on the path of ascent.
All of these qualities are the source of human suffering. Only their gradual, consistent transformation in virtue will help turn grief into happiness and joy. But acceptance of suffering is not all. You can endure with gritted teeth. And you can overcome and transform suffering. It can be a stone crushing the soul, but it can become a rock on which we will stand as a firm support.
But truly, everything great enters this world through the gates of suffering.
We love the pearl. How is she born? In the Indian Ocean, a mollusk lives in a folded shell. A grain of sand enters the shell, which irritates the body of the mollusk. Then, for the purpose of self-defense, he emits a pearly liquid from himself, which envelops a grain of sand. This work has been going on for years. This is how pearls are born, the beauty of crowns and necklaces.
Once the Buddha was asked: "What causes suffering?" He answered with a story: "A hunter in the forest fell struck by an arrow. Did he or those around him ask at that moment where the arrow came from, or what it was made of? Of course not. But first of all they tried to extract the arrow." So we are mortally wounded by the arrow of suffering; and the most important thing is to take out the arrow.
It is necessary to know the cause of suffering in order to avoid it another time, it is necessary to know the purpose of our trials, because this strengthens the spirit, makes it steadfast in enduring pain. After all, the heaviest suffering is its aimlessness.
May suffering be blessed
what glorious steps of ascent!
From the proposed presentation, in an interesting way, learn about the meaning of suffering
Let's smile! :)
1. All people suffer
Each of us can say about ourselves the words with which the third chapter of “Lamentations of Jeremiah” begins, “I am a man who has experienced grief.” Even Dostoevsky said that "the earth from the bark to the center is saturated with blood and tears." By this he confirmed the words of St. Paul, “the whole creation groans and travails until now.” When the sword passed through the whole earth, fire, famine and turmoil and suffering seized the man even more. Walking down the street, you rarely see a joyful smile. Of course, there is a smile on their faces, but how much bitterness, mockery and, moreover, at oneself. And how much invisible grief lurks under these seemingly calm faces and behind the walls of elegant houses. Sometimes a person hides himself with a smile so that his grief is not noticed. And sympathy is often insincere or useless often irritates him. I recall the recent death of the world-famous clown Max Linder /1925/, who amused the crowd with inexhaustible humor and at the same time harbored a deep ulcer of suffering that led him to suicide in the end.
We live in such days when the sun, if not, then human face, so much grief reflects his brow, his premature wrinkles and gray hair!
Everyone suffers - those who have done a lot of evil, and innocent children, and young people who have not yet had time to taste life. suffer good people and the better a person is, the deeper he mourns. "The sum of the suffering of the soul is proportional to the degree of its perfection," says Amiel in his diary. And Dostoevsky claims that great people experience great sadness.
People suffer in the body - from hunger, cold, disease and overwork. They suffer in soul from slander and lead, from themselves and from others, from neighborhood with their neighbors, they come out in anguish of loneliness and incomprehensibility, poisoned by the bitterness of disappointment, the torments of deceived love or grief for the loss of loved ones. How many difficult minutes does the consciousness of its imperfection cause us, as well as the imperfection of the world, which Solomon expressed: "Vanity of vanities and all is vanity." No wonder A. Tolstoy admits that Beethoven "overheard" the sounds of his funeral march in the sobs of nature. And perhaps the greatest suffering is in the absence of suffering, just as the most difficult labor is the absence of labor.
An eerie emptiness that chills the soul emanates from the horror of aimlessness that gives rise to the worst of suffering - boredom, heavy, strange as it may seem, precisely because there is no suffering in it, no pain, no bitterness, no longing - but one lifeless desert that oppresses consciousness. After all, not to suffer means not to participate in life, in its suffering, to be “superfluous” and useless.
Does suffering make sense?
Once the Buddha was asked: "Why does suffering come?" He answered with a story: “A hunter in the forest fell struck by an arrow. Did he or those around him ask at that moment where the arrow came from, or what it was made of? Of course not. But first of all, they tried to extract the arrow. So we are mortally wounded by the arrow of suffering; and the most important thing is to take out the arrow.
It is necessary to know the cause of suffering in order to avoid it another time, it is necessary to know the purpose of our trials, because this strengthens the spirit, makes it steadfast in enduring pain. After all, the heaviest suffering is its aimlessness.
2. Cause of suffering.
We call suffering the feeling of displeasure that we experience when reality does not meet our desires. By reality we mean external circumstances such as poverty, sickness, hunger, cold, and our moral actions, our actions, which often contradict our highest desires.
The source of suffering usually lies in man's deviation from the laws of nature, both physical and spiritual. Or our desires are bad, contrary to reality, the nature of things, the nature of man. Or vice versa, the apparent reality is contrary to our good desires, and we suffer, thus, because of the good. But this is because reality itself has been perverted by the evil desires of man.
Our actions contradict our highest desires - “the good that I want, I don’t do, but the evil that I don’t want, I do,” and then we experience inner suffering - the torment of conscience.
Almost always we will find the cause of suffering in sin, our own or someone else's, in violation of the laws of life that separates us from God, people, nature "for sin is lawlessness" / 1 John 3: 4 /.
What are these laws? In the language of biology and sociology, these are the laws of life, the preservation of the genus and species, society and the individual.
In the language of ethics, these are the laws of love, purity, justice and reverence for what is above us.
In the language of religion, these are the commandments of God.
The Bible recognizes evil as an attitude: the Devil, who has become an incorrect attitude towards God, contrary to his original, good nature and deviation from his normal nature. The meaning of suffering, on the one hand, is associated with evil, and on the other hand, it has the meaning of the life for which a person lives, the Bible says that the main source of our suffering is “expulsion from paradise” caused by the sin of disobedience, deviation from a given norm. And since then, the goal of life is "return to paradise." And we will return to it better than we came out of it. For we came out of it with the knowledge of evil. And we will return with a victory over evil, we came out defeated and we will return victorious.
3. What causes suffering?
Does it not give good fruits in life and thereby justify suffering?
Do we not recognize that many of the sufferings in our lives have had a beneficial effect on us and have been a school of life for us?
First, the suffering we experienced after some of our crimes teaches us the truth, confirming the presence of the moral law in life. I offended a person, and soon I myself experienced the bitterness of the insult caused to me by another person. I regretted giving to the beggar - I soon lost my wallet. Jacob deceived Esau by stealing the birthright from him, and then he himself was deceived many times by Laban and his sons. King Adoni-Vazek, after the victorious Jews chopped off his thumbs and toes, said: “Seventy kings with their thumbs cut off on their hands and feet, they collected crumbs under my table, as I did, so I was rewarded God” /Judg.1/
In life, the law is constantly being implemented: "by what one sinned, he is punished by that."
These sufferings teach us not to do to others what we do not want to do to ourselves. Thus, one can discover and realize the moral structure of life, although at the cost of suffering, and feel oneself in a rational universe, not in chaos, but in space. Therefore, the exclamation of David becomes understandable: “It is good for me that I suffered that I might learn Your statutes.”
4. Suffering purifies the soul.
A person's need for purifying sorrow is so great that often he himself seeks retribution, punishment for crimes, if only to satisfy his conscience, in order to calm inner torment with bodily suffering. It is through such voluntary suffering that a person refines the soul and prepares it for receiving Divine purification, since the effort of a person, testifying to the sincerity of his repentance, must also participate in the work of redemption.
“Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance,” John the Baptist preached.
Suffering is for us a source of moral values and positive spiritual acquisitions, it leads us to faith, love and spiritual strength. We live on this earth in order to work on the beauty of our soul, and life is a huge workshop in which the soul is prepared for the new heaven and new earth.
“Through a great crucible of doubts, my hosanna came,” says Dostoevsky. This crucible was also a terrible expectation of execution, when in 1849 he. He stood on the scaffold, and the horrors of 4-year hard labor, and life in the "dead house", and the serious illness of epilepsy.
"Why are you Luka so soft?" - they ask one of the heroes of the drama "At the bottom" / Gorky /.
"That's why I'm soft, that I was crushed a lot." And haven't you experienced how suffering makes us more indulgent towards another, cultivates sensitivity to someone else's grief and understanding of the human soul. And isn't the worst thing the loss of the ability to love? After all, hell is, according to the elder Zosima, suffering that it is no longer possible to love.
Our bodily suffering can contribute to our moral liberation, for - “he who suffers in the flesh ceases to sin” / 1 Pet. 4:1/.
"Man is born into suffering, like sparks to rush upwards" /Job.5:7/.
This is your current suffering, which you so tremble - it will inscribe a new line of beauty in your soul. In your image, it mintes your ideal image, in the image of God - just endure it!
Do not be afraid of the blows of the great chisel, which cuts off the fragments from the marble, obscuring the wondrous beauty - the Divine artist sees it with his seer's eye.
5. Suffering prepares for great service.
Suffering not only makes us better, but also develops in us the ability to make others better. Joseph, who experienced betrayal and prison, passed through this school, David, who survived persecution and wandering, and all the prophets and righteous people. In this school of poverty, abandonment, loneliness, non-recognition, people receive a new heart, making them capable of serving the great.
"For gold is tested in fire, but those who are pleasing to God in the furnace of humiliation." That is why God sends St. Paul had a “thorn in the flesh” so that he would not become proud, would not be exalted by the extravagance of revelations, but would understand the great secret of humility: “my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Suffering leads not only to strength, but also to wisdom. It refines the gaze, deepens the capacity for revelation. Ap. John, suffering for the word of God, was in prison on the island of Patmos, and the revelation of Christ appeared to the gaze of his spirit.
In order to break the strong rock of the human heart with a word, one must experience for oneself what it means to have a broken heart. But it's not so scary when a heart breaks, but when it turns to stone. Isn't this the secret of the eternal charm of Christ? Therefore, he can sympathize with us in our infirmities, because "He, like us, was tempted in everything, except for sin." He Himself walked the path of human suffering: "He took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our sicknesses."
6. Incomprehensible suffering.
Merezhkovsky expressed his belief in wisdom and conduct in these words:
Through strife and wild chaos,
Through suffering and lies
You to the great harmony
You lead the exhausted people.
But there are sufferings, the cause of which is in vain to look for in the punishment for sin, and their purpose is also incomprehensible. Their secret is accomplished in a different, otherworldly plane of being, they are sent not as punishment, but for testing. The book of Job speaks of such a test.
Job was thoroughly tested and found to be faithful. This kind of suffering is caused not by the sin of man, but by that mystery of being, about which Dostoevsky speaks: "The devil fights with God, but the battlefield is the field of man." These sufferings are given to man through no fault of his, - “Let the works of God appear on him: and let the man be justified, and therefore God who created him.
The victory of goodness in the human soul, its justification requires that a person freely, disinterestedly choose the truth even when there is no reward for it and even when a person suffers innocent suffering. For Christ desired the free love of man. Will a person stand this test? Will he bless God, do good, and will he say from the depths of his suffering, as Job said: “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” or in the words of Ivan Karamazov: “You are right, Lord, for Your ways have been opened!”
7. Acceptance of suffering.
So this is the meaning of suffering, why and why they occur. They have their effective cause - namely, deviation from the norm and meaning of life or intelligent life.
They also have their goal - the return of a person to normal life, to his true purpose - educating a person in selfless love for good.
And since the cause of suffering is the departure from God, then its consequence is a return to God a, through Him to nature and people, and even more: the adoration of everything, so that “God is everything in everything.” And this is the purpose of being. From this, the expression of the Belgian poet Maeterlinck becomes clear: “Although angels are more beautiful than people, there are no tears in their eyes.” However, not all people overcome suffering. Many are crushed by him. For them, it gives rise not to praise, but to blasphemy, not to blessing, but to murmuring and cursing.
8. How to overcome suffering.
True wisdom lies not only in the analysis of suffering and its explanation, but in the ability to overcome it. And this is one of the most important tasks of life. For to accept life means to accept suffering, and to be able to live means to be able to suffer.
In practice, we treat suffering in two ways: either we run away from it, or we accept it.
The Buddha discovers the first attitude: he is aware that reality is bad and desires are bad: he is powerless to remake both, and therefore he sees the only way out in getting away from all desires, from personality, from self-consciousness into nirvana / non-existence /. This path is an escape, an escape from life, a thirst for desirelessness. The Buddha said what he could say, being only a man and, moreover, living six centuries before the appearance of Jesus Christ in the world. He came to the conclusion that life is deeply corrupted and distorted, that this life is not worth living, and it is better not to live any life. And so he preached spiritual self-destruction. And many in our day, weary of life. They want to get away from suffering and life in this way.
There is a more frivolous escape from suffering when people, most of whom find it in an effort to drown out the bitterness of life for a moment of pleasure, to forget themselves with the madness of a “feast during the plague” or dancing on the verge of death. "Let's eat and drink, for tomorrow we'll die."
Another attitude towards suffering is its acceptance. “I want to live in order to think and suffer,” says A.S. Pushkin.
But acceptance of suffering is not all. You can stupidly endure, gritting your teeth. And you can overcome and transform suffering. It can be a stone crushing the soul, but it can become a rock on which we will stand as a firm support.
When the prophet Jeremiah, weeping for his people and hated by this people for constant denunciations, loses heart and complains to God: “Woe to me, my mother, that you have given birth to me as a man who argues and quarrels with all the earth. Oh, Lord... You know that for your sake I bear reproach. Why is my illness so stubborn and my wound so unhealed that it rejects healing? Will you be to me like a deceitful spring, unfaithful water?”
God answers him: “If you extract the precious from the worthless, you will be like my mouth” / Jer. 15/, i.e. you will have the power creative power Divine word. It is precisely this ability - to extract the precious from the insignificant - that constitutes the secret of all creativeness, of Divine doing. Is it not she who, in the chemical laboratory of nature, grows a fragrant flower on rotting garbage? Isn't it his artist, taking the "contemptible from life", raises it "into the pearl of creation" / Gogol /.
Is it not this power, in essence, in the middle of the century, alchemists, calling it the philosopher's stone, which would turn rough metals into gold. And she is this force that creates an emerald from clay and a diamond from coal.
But truly, everything great enters this world through the gates of suffering. We admire the pearl, how is it born? In the Indian Ocean, a mollusk lives in a folded shell. A grain of sand enters the shell, which irritates the body of the mollusk. Then, for the purpose of self-defense, he emits a pearly liquid from himself, which envelops a grain of sand. This work has been going on for years. This is how pearls are born, the beauty of crowns and necklaces.
But not all suffering is capable of producing it. And therefore, turning now to the sufferings we experience, we must first of all distinguish between two kinds of them.
9. Suffering for untruth.
There are sufferings for violating the truth, those that result from the inconsistency of reality with our bad desires. In this case, reality is good. But our desires are sinful. The miser dries with greed, the alcoholic languishes without finding an exciting drink, Cruel person he does not sleep at night because he does not succeed in revenge, a depraved person is tormented by an impure passion that burns him. After all, this is also suffering.
"Sorrow and distress to every soul of a man who does evil" /Rom.2/.
About how many of them, these martyrs, in the name of the "teaching of the world" L.N. Tolstoy. There are many more of them than for the teachings of Christ, and these sufferings are much harder, because they are meaningless. They cannot have meaning, because they arise from the violation of the meaning of life. The laws of nature, love and purity.
They come from fighting against Christ in the name of sin. Against meaning, reason /Logos/, in the name of nonsense. Their temporary negative meaning consists only in the fact that they testify to the deviation from the true, eternal meaning of life and show how not to live. So once Christ warned Saul, who resisted Him: “It is difficult for you to go against the pricks!”
All these physical and mental illnesses are only signal fires with which nature has protected the edges of gaping abysses and swampy swamps in order to protect man. This is self-defence, the immunity of nature. And the greatest of these sufferings is boredom, testifying to the highest purpose of man, that the nature of his soul does not tolerate emptiness, and that this emptiness cannot be filled by any, the most material fantasies, for "only God can saturate the immortal soul."
We must not endure these sufferings, but eliminate them by removing their cause - sin. All the power of sacred anger and irreconcilable protest that a person is only capable of, he must turn against these enslavers of the soul: pride, cruelty, impurity, which, promising sweetness to a person, bring to his lips only “the goblet of death full of poison”, “worldly sadness produces death” /2 Cor.7:10/. This suffering is not worth a single tear, not a single breath. Therefore, “let us throw off every burden and sin that stumbles us” (Heb. 12:1 / Scripture says. And these words always sound like a call to that deep spiritual upheaval, which is called the revolution of the spirit.
10. Suffering for the truth.
If you suffer for a cause, repent; if you suffer undeservedly, rejoice. But there is another kind of suffering, for truth, for the triumph of love, purity of life, obedience to God, the suffering of Christ. Here, the hostile reality of carnal life, both in others and in ourselves, collides with the highest desires of the spirit. It is a fight against sin in the name of Christ. It is "Godly sorrow that produces unchanging repentance unto salvation."
Selfishness, self-affirmation, coarse sensitivity in myself stand on the way to the truth, and I declare a fight against them, “I torment the tormenting me,” as Ephraim Sirin says, about the spiritualization of the flesh. This is a struggle, an inevitable stage on the path to happiness. And as these obstacles from my flesh self and the people of the world rebel against my higher desires, I suffer.
People "do not forgive good", oddly enough. People crucified Christ, they are persecuting Him even now. In this world where our Lord is crucified, we must be persecuted if we are not in friendship with this world.
And anyone who follows Christ without a cross is not worthy of Him. Because "all who desire to live godly in Christ will be persecuted"
We are fighting sin in people, we are fighting "with man for man" - and such a struggle is not forgiven not only by the spirit of darkness, but also by those people who "loved darkness more than light." And suffering for confession for the name of Christ and the Gospel in word and deed is "participation in the sufferings of Christ." This is the true Christian faith, which gave the world the beauty of martyrdom: “As you participate in the sufferings of Christ, rejoice, and in the manifestation of His glory you will rejoice and exult. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, then you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God rests on you, by those he is blasphemed, and by you he is glorified.
If only one of you did not suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a villain, or as an encroacher on someone else's, and if as a Christian, then do not be ashamed, but glorify God for such a fate. Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him as to a faithful Creator, doing good” / 1 Pet. 4:13-19/.
These sufferings will end only in the Kingdom of God, when it appears in all its strength, and it is precisely in order for this Kingdom of joy to come that one must suffer. Suffering for Christ is not a hard lot, but a joyful advantage. And therefore it is said: “For the sake of Christ it has been given to you not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him” (Phil. 1:29/.
These sufferings are for the meaning of life, for the Logos, for Christ. Of these sufferings Christ said: "Your sorrow will turn into joy." "Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
How can we distinguish suffering for the truth from suffering for the violation of the truth? To do this, we must bring into our lives the highest image (criterion) of good and evil, accept the One Who is the Meaning of life, Who said about himself: “I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
And in this light, we will not only distinguish fatal suffering from good ones. And they will not only illuminate with their light, but they will also burn with a cleansing fire suffering for a lie, eliminating their cause - dark, base desires, and they will transform suffering for the truth into joy and beauty.
11. Christ and suffering.
Indeed, didn’t Christ come into this world to free man from the burden of suffering? Isn't this the good news of the New Testament?
Outside of Christ, man is carefully intensified to resolve the issue of suffering.
As already mentioned, the teaching of the Buddha seeks to eliminate suffering through the annihilation of desires in a person, but in this way it makes a person impassive, insensitive, indifferent, impersonal ... and together with suffering, the Buddha eliminates both consciousness and life.
And Christ transforms bad desires into good ones, for only bad, evil desires cause fatal suffering to a person. He removes from desires only their deadly sting - the sin of the very personality of man. His conscious, spiritual life He affirms. Christ did not say a single funeral speech. When He met funerals, He just stopped them by raising the dead.
Suffering is the main question of man crying out to God. Christ is God's answer to the cry. Christ brought the gospel of mercy, healing, peace and love. People will always love this book, because in it they will find an echo for all human sorrows - starting from the bitter tears of the renounced Peter and ending with the inexpressible sorrow of the Virgin Mary, standing at the cross with her heart pierced by the sword of longing for her Son.
Finally, here we meet the torments of the Lord that surpass our experience. After all, He Himself went through the entire difficult path of man, moreover, bearing our sorrows without guilt. What does Christ give to a person who is burdened with suffering for untruth? First of all, He gives “to the blind with sight,” i. teaches us to distinguish suffering for a lie from suffering for the truth. He forgives guilt and frees us from punishment for untruth, from the torment of conscience, and in this way unites us with God.
Those who have endured the bonds and prison for confessing the Gospel know from experience that with Christ there is freedom in prison, but without Christ there is prison in freedom.
Consider what the Good Samaritan did. He poured oil and wine on the unfortunate wounds. So the oil of consolation is needed to soften the pain of a mournful sick person, maybe it will be a word of consolation, or an attentive, sensitive attitude, a word of participation. And not as comforted by Job's friends: "God punished you." It is necessary to pity a person for each and the one who has fallen deeply. “After all, every sinful person is also you,” says an Eastern Sanskrit saying.
A person must be loved and pitied, and not his sin, the sick, and not his illness. But the Gospel help pours not only oil on the wounds, but also wine, in order to protect from decay, to disinfect. It comforts a person, but at the same time castigates his sin, Christ says to the sinner: “I do not condemn you either” - and in this goodness there is oil. But then He adds: "go and sin no more" - this is wine that saves from death.
"Be merciful to some, and save others with fear."
Only good news turns sorrows into joy, anger into love and leads to the heavenly feast of Cana of Galilee.
12. Participation in the sufferings of Christ.
How can a person share in the sufferings of Christ? Why app. Did Paul attach such great importance to this experience? But first of all, it is necessary to clarify what is to be understood by the expression "the suffering of Christ"? We are so inclined to understand by this His torment in the Garden of Gethsemane and His atoning death on Golgotha. But they were far from being exhausted by this, weren't there three recent years His earthly life as an uninterrupted chain of suffering?
Let us remember how hard it was for Christ, the Holy Son of God, to live among sinful people, in constant touch with their needs and constantly have before their eyes their moral humiliation and the destructive traces of sin. How painful it was to always be spiritually lonely, little understood, constantly misunderstood even by the closest and beloved people. Not to have time for food and sleep, to endure hunger and deprivation of all kinds, not to have a place where "to lay my head." To be subjected to the gravest temptations, and for all this to reap slander, hatred and persecution. How painful it was to be abandoned by everyone, even close students, to be subjected to bullying, torture, and in the end - a terrible death on the cross.
The death of Christ on Calvary was only the end of a lifetime of service and suffering. Let us not forget that these sufferings of His were voluntary sufferings. “Because my father loves me,” Christ says, “because I give my life in order to take it again. No one takes it away from Me, but I myself give it: I have the power to give it away and I have the power to receive it again.
This means no one, neither God nor people, forced Him to choose such a life for Himself. At all times He had every opportunity to live for Himself and let us perish, but He chose to sacrifice His life for our salvation out of love for us. This is what gave His suffering the character of a sacrifice.
What was the purpose of this suffering, and what was its cause? Their goal was to spread the good Kingdom of God, and thus the salvation of the human race. Their cause is the great principle of retribution, which manifests itself equally in the moral world and the physical world, and operates with such unerring consistency as the law of gravitation. "Nothing is given for free." There is no progress without labor, without effort, without sacrifice. Imagine how a grain of wheat lies calmly and comfortably in its clean closet in an ear in a field, it enjoys the sunshine, the breeze, the proximity of many other such grains on that colossus and field. How terrible it must seem for a grain to fall into the cold, damp, dirty, dark earth, lie there alone, decompose and perish. But after all, only at such a price is the harvest given.
Is ap. Paul could not, while remaining a believer, live with some conveniences, have his own corner of the house and give edifying sermons from time to time. But when he heard the call of Christ, he did not hesitate to follow the path that Christ outlined for him. “I don’t look at anything, and I don’t value my life,” he says, and therefore we see him “in labors, immeasurably in wounds, in dungeons, many times at death, in danger, in exhaustion, often in vigil, in hunger and thirst, often in fasting, in cold and nakedness” /2 Cor:2:23-28/.
It is hard to imagine what a string of self-denial, effort, struggle and suffering his life represented. Moved by love for Christ, he voluntarily devoted himself to the cause of Christ and willingly took his share of the cost of this enterprise. This was "participation in the sufferings of Christ." Ap. Paul highly valued participation in the sufferings of Christ. “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you and make up for the lack in my flesh of the sorrows of Christ for His body.” Didn't he rejoice at the thought that all these sufferings were voluntary for the sake of Christ, from this a new strong and close bond grew between him and Christ. In addition, he learned by experience that the path of suffering for Christ is a precious school from which he learned much. He learned to rely not on his own strength, but on the strength of God, "which is perfected in weakness." The sorrows he endured for the sake of Christ brought with them heavenly comfort, so that he could say to himself: “As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, our consolation also abounds in Christ.” /2 Corinthians 1:5/.
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On the meaning of suffering Viktor Frankl)
About suffering Philosopher Ivan Ilyin)
About patience Philosopher Ivan Ilyin)
Suffering Audio
About innocent suffering Alexey Osipov, professor)
Answered by Victor Belousov, 11/04/2015
Olga asks:“No matter how much and what I read, I can’t understand why suffering purifies the soul. When suffering, people can even become hardened, and I know such people. Only Love can purify the soul. , I reason like that. But I would like to understand why that suffering purifies the soul. Thank you."
Peace be with you, Olga!
There are no such words in the Bible. Accordingly, one must understand who thinks so that suffering cleanses the soul .
Suffering - they are in the life of any person. But the attitude to suffering and the consequences are different. The understanding of the "norm", some average acceptable way of life, may also differ.
Found the following: According to Orthodox teaching, in order to achieve salvation, it is enough to endure with gratitude involuntary sorrows that come upon a person, but monastics, in order to achieve greater levels of Christian perfection, impose arbitrary sorrows on themselves. These sorrows: painful fasting, vigil, prayer, humility, virginity, and so on. The theological basis of such behavior is the opposition of the old, carnal, man - spiritual (). Accordingly, with the mortification of the flesh and the enslavement of its spirit, one can achieve higher spiritual states, which is the goal of monasticism.(Wikipedia)
"The Christian, more than anyone else, feels the impermanence and insignificance of the temporal and perishable. His soul involuntarily rushes to where the eternal Truth lives. Carrying his cross, he knows that it is not in vain that he endures misfortunes and persecutions, sorrows and hardships ... If blows become more frequent, as if unceasing thunder is heard, he knows that it is precisely here that all the tenderness of Divine love is revealed.
... A highly educated and respectable man had two beautiful daughters, sixteen and nineteen years old. He was proud of his father's pride, feeling that he was reborn in children. But unexpectedly the youngest was slain by typhus; the eldest became infected from her and followed him ... For a whole week, my father did not leave solitude ... He came out a different person. His happiness is that he was a convinced Christian. He realized that these blows were a caress of Divine love. His view of earthly life became different. When he died and ascended from this life, his two beautiful daughters met him, transfigured by the radiance of heavenly glory. God separated them for a moment in order to unite them in the bliss of eternal light.
So christian cross brighter and brighter amid the trials of life. Gems, emeralds more and more adorn the crown on the head of the one who humbly bears his suffering. From these sufferings flow light and beauty, purity and airiness, which elevate the soul to God.
Purified and elevated by suffering, the soul expands in love. Suffering gives life and multiplies the flame of spiritual strength. "Our heart is enlarged" (, 11), - says the holy Apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthian Christians. "You, suffering, produce true people," says the poet. We see the greatest and most essential cause of suffering: it expands the soul and multiplies love. I almost said that suffering re-creates the soul, puts into it the beauty of deep feelings, touchingness, greatness. Neither genius, nor fame, nor virtue without suffering can give a person true greatness. That is why all holy heroes, geniuses, all great souls have been pupils of suffering. The laurel wreath always rested only on a weary brow. The soul never reveals its powers in a more touching and true beauty than in the face of suffering, when it forgets itself for the sake of its neighbor. This is the highest beauty and grandeur. One thinker said: "Do you know what angels envy us? In nothing, except that we, people, can suffer for the sake of God, but they never suffered for Him."
The greatness and beauty of the soul are arranged in steps, according to the strength of suffering. At the top are those who have the flame of virtue and suffering burning on their foreheads, below are those who suffer less and are more frivolous, even lower you meet those who are already laughing. The height of suffering puts on the soul the beauty of seriousness as a companion of great people. The face, like the heart, becomes more beautiful and spiritual."
In different cultures and peoples there are different attitudes towards suffering . It is interesting to look into the socio-cultural layer. I will quote from the abstract of the dissertation "Crying as a phenomenon of Russian culture" Konyreva I.V. The thesis itself was defended in 2003 inKomsomolsk-on-Amur.The text is not written by plain language, but it is interesting to understand the roots of this concept:
"The specificity of the mentality of Russian culture is due to natural geographical features, the peculiarity of the geopolitical position and religious dual faith. In Russian culture, a significant spiritual synthesis of the Greek-Byzantine faith and Slavic paganism took place. Therefore, the unique synthesis of Christian and pagan elements significantly influenced the formation of two principles of Russian culture: The dominance of one or the other principle in the cultural-historical process determines the type of attitude to the world, value-semantic paradigms and the specifics of behavioral models.
The “emphatically dual” (N.A. Khrenov) era of the Middle Ages studied by us was the most significant in the process of forming the deplorable basis of the Russian mentality and culture. V Orthodox faith the idea of universal sin and depravity of the earthly world dominates. A true believer should strive with all his heart and thoughts to a world of purity and goodness, to a place where there is no evil and suffering, to a world that gives deliverance. The most important deliverance is deliverance from the painful, sometimes tragic splitting of the soul and flesh. The Byzantine mystical teaching had a significant influence on the formation of the Russian “irrational” and “sensitive” (I.V. Kondakov) Orthodox mentality. The moral and psychological foundations of hesychasm were laid in Orthodox culture"tearful" traditions. According to their teaching, crying was perceived as a way to pour out deep sadness, as an opportunity to open the soul to God himself, as a tearful confession about one's sins. The beginnings of spiritual freedom and an irrational worldview, laid down by the followers of hesychasm - "non-possessors" - largely determined the psychological depth of experiences, the silent "cleansing of the heart" with tears, which contributed to the formation of the deplorable foundation of Russian culture.
The phenomenon of dualism in Old Russian culture determined the specificity of the "dissonant" worldview, based on a keen sense of disharmony and imperfection of the earthly world. This determined the existence of such anthropological constants in Russian culture as "existential sadness", a tendency to suffering and compassion. The specific mental and psychological state of melancholy, born of the feeling of God-forsakenness, the unrealizability of the ideal of "due", is comprehended in the dissertation work as a transformed form of crying.
In periods of historical instability, laughter, along with crying, becomes an expression of social moods and behavior. However, the eschatological essence of Russian culture does not allow us to comprehend the laughter of crisis eras as cheerful, it is rather “lamentable” (“laughter through tears”). Such a semantic transformation of laughter was reflected in foolishness, in the work of wandering blind singers and, in part, buffoons. The brash laughter of the crisis period was joyless: its nature is satirical, not comical. The “bipolarity” (G.P. Fedotov) of the Russian mentality largely determines the “two-layeredness” of Russian laughter associated with the idea of fatalism. Eastern elements (fatalism, humility) of the Russian mentality permeate laughter with a tragic feeling. So, the laughter culture of Ancient Russia paradoxically absorbs the lamentable beginning.
In the Middle Ages, crying manifested itself not only at the level of a behavioral model, but also received its embodiment in cultural texts: ritual, literary, pictorial, musical. Crying is considered by us as a motif characteristic of many works of art of Ancient Russia, and as a genre formed under the influence of folk traditions and thanks to Byzantine (Hesychast) influence.
The predominance of the "feminine" principle in the Russian mentality, which actualizes irrationality, fatalism, humility, a tendency to sacrifice, suffering and compassion, also defines "lamentation" as the rooted basis of the Russian mentality.
For comparisons we can read the understanding of suffering and spiritual growth from another culture - the Jewish one. It is also about the fact that in suffering we can learn something, but the view is slightly different - suffering is a given of being, but is not set as the main tool for spiritual enlightenment:
There are questions that a person asks throughout his life. Why is there so much suffering in the world? What do we do in case of mental or physical suffering? Why does G-d allow righteous people to suffer undue pain?
In the most difficult moments of despair, we must not forget that it is deep faith that gives us the strength to somehow come to terms with our pain, to resist it. In a world without G‑d, pain and suffering are absolutely in vain. But in a G-d-ruled world, pain, even if it never leaves us, can be accepted as a means of knowing life. It pushes us to search for answers, to clarify our relationship with Gd, to gain further life experience.
Such is the test that brings pain with it. Will you let it weaken you, or will you see it as a catalyst to dive deeper into yourself and your beliefs? Will you let the emotions that overwhelm you distort your inner sense of truth, or will you recognize the pain as the crucible from which you can come out stronger than you were before?
One of the main questions that we need to answer is not only why we sometimes experience so much pain, but also what we can learn from it.
If you consider life as an existence limited to a certain space and current time, the immediacy of material existence, you will certainly be frightened by everything that threatens it. And this, of course, will upset you. If, along with the physical reality, you see a larger picture of the spiritual reality, pain is only one of the components of this reality. Suffering, whether physical, emotional or spiritual, has its limits, while life is infinite. And, importantly, it turns out to be the field of your long-term participation in it. In this regard, you should know the positive energy that your suffering creates. Just as a few drops of precious oil can only be extracted by crushing olives, through suffering we can come to redefine the meaning of life, to a fuller commitment to our spiritual development.
At first glance, the purpose of our life is to achieve material well-being providing short-term happiness. In the end, we are convinced that this is an unreasonable and meaningless goal. The true, lofty goal is to test one's strength to improve the material world. Life is a test of one's strength, the ability to do good and evil, the ability to choose between one and the other. Without this ability, life would lose its independence and therefore meaning.
Pain and suffering are the results of this independence, as well as the duality of body and soul. By creating harmony between them, moving from physical, one-dimensional life to spiritual, two-dimensional life, you begin to transform your pain into an educational experience and positive energy.
The restructuring of life's perspective cannot be done easily. She demands strict discipline and focusing on study, prayer, and good deeds. At the same time, a system of higher values is introduced into your life, which is a worthy response to suffering. Even if the suffering is not relieved, it will prove to be a short-term symptom of a long-term cause, which you can now consider.
The challenge is to discover how pain can become a blessing in disguise and how to overcome pain and restore harmony between body and soul. Think of the inevitable disappointment that precedes creative growth, or the agony of a woman in childbirth. No matter how great suffering is, it is eventually absorbed by the goodness that it fosters.
As we grope our way, stumbling through life, we ask ourselves a series of questions. Will we ever find true happiness, peace in ourselves, will we be able to fill our lives with meaning? Or has fear and ambiguity settled in her forever? Will virtue and cordiality prevail in this world? And if not, how can we justify to ourselves and our children the need to follow moral and ethical principles? Indeed, human nature strives for a higher goal, but what is the point of working so hard to stick to high spirituality if it does not lead anywhere?
The answer to these questions is only one word - deliverance, symbolizing the light at the end of the tunnel of our life. Deliverance is G-d speaking to us that the reason He created the world will eventually be fulfilled - good will rule and our life can be filled with meaning. Deliverance is an integral part of both G-d's plan and human life. Without deliverance, it would remain meaningless, like a never-ending tunnel in the dark, with little awareness of the alternative and no hope of ever seeing the light.
But what does deliverance mean, what do we need to get rid of? We need to get rid of the danger of being caught in the net of the darkness of the material world, which hinders our search for the meaning of life, makes it sluggish and aimless, fills it with doubt and fear.
G-d endowed us with a divine spark, which, if inflated, will allow us to illuminate everything around and confidently move forward.
Deliverance is not an event that happens at the end of our life on earth. This is a growing process that begins with our appearance in the world. Each good deed raises us one step closer to the completion of this process.
We understand that the world is far from perfect, but we are looking for an ideal. We see suffering and difficulties around, but we dream of peace and prosperity.
The same is happening at the collective and global level. At all times, people gave their knowledge, mind and heart in order to make life easier for mankind. New political and economic systems, industry and business have been developed, considerable attention is paid to education. And all this has as its goal the improvement of the world, of society. People do not leave hope for a better future.
Thus, we are all waiting for deliverance. There is no need to be afraid of this word. Deliverance is not necessarily a religious or spiritual concept. It means freedom.
("Toward a Meaningful Life" Menahem-Mendl Schneersohn)
What does the Bible say about suffering, cleansing, and love? What leads to spiritual growth?
Love for God and everything connected with God - as an action:
2 I will love you, O Lord, my strength!
8 Lord! I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place of the habitation of thy glory.
97 How I love your law! I've been thinking about it all day.
Accepting God's love for us:
1 The king of Israel will perish at dawn! When Israel was young, I loved them, and from Egypt I called my son.
6 For you are a holy people to the Lord your God: the Lord your God has chosen you to be his own people, out of all the peoples that are on the earth.
7 Not because you were more numerous than all nations, the Lord accepted you and chose you, for you are less numerous than all nations, -
8 But because the Lord loves you, and in order to keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord brought you out with a strong hand and freed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Listening to God's Word:
17 So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one;
5 And love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
6 And let these words which I command you today be in your heart.
7 and inspire them to your children and speak of them, sitting in your house and walking along the road, and lying down and getting up;
8 and bind them as a token on your hand, and let them be a bandage over your eyes,
9 And write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Our response to chastisement and punishment:
4 You have not yet fought to the point of bloodshed, fighting against sin,
5 and have forgotten the consolation which is offered to you as to sons: my son! do not despise the chastisement of the Lord, and do not be discouraged when He reproves you.
6 For whom the Lord loves, he chastens; he strikes every son whom he receives.
7 If you endure punishment, then God deals with you as with sons. For is there any son whom his father does not punish?
8 But if you remain without punishment, which is common to all, then you are illegitimate children, and not sons.
9 Moreover, [if] we, being punished by our carnal parents, were afraid of them, should we not be much more subject to the Father of spirits in order to live?
10 They punished us according to their will for a few days; but this one is for profit, that we may share in his holiness.
11 Every punishment now seems not joy, but sorrow; but afterward, to those who have been taught through it, it delivers the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
12 Therefore, strengthen your hands that hang down and your feeble knees.
13 and walk straight with your feet, lest what is lame be turned away, but rather be corrected.
All this works in integrity. Someone can focus on suffering, someone on service, someone on love. But one is impossible without the other. In any case, we are faced with suffering and we need to respond, adapt. We face the needs of others to help (or not help) and that too is a subject of growth. Through various circumstances and faith, we experience God's love and we ourselves begin to experience this love for the Lord - and this is the fundamental motive.
God's blessings
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Suffering is an integral part of the life of any person. We all strive for something, make certain plans for the future, but do not always achieve what we want. At such moments, suffering comes, sometimes forcing you to be disappointed and give up ahead of time. Of course, not all of life is spent in suffering, but everyone experiences certain mistakes and losses.
Essence of suffering
Suffering is a state of frustration and extreme dissatisfaction. Suffering in a person arises when desires that are significant for him, for some reason, have not been realized. The essence of suffering lies in the fact that a person begins to feel inner pain in himself, from which he cannot get rid of for a long time. Usually suffering is caused by some internal unresolved problem, which has several contradictions.
The essence of any human experience boils down to a subjective sense of loss and an insurmountable obstacle. Often a person has a feeling that nothing can be corrected and it remains only to come to terms with their difficult share.
The meaning of suffering
If you think about why people suffer, the answer will not be so easy to find. This question often remains unanswered. Many people see the meaning of emotional experiences in helping themselves to change, to rethink important events of the past. However, few people consciously choose suffering for themselves as a path of spiritual transformation. Mostly only deeply religious people choose to suffer in order to purify their thoughts and feelings. They see the meaning of suffering in getting rid of oppressive experiences and additional temptations to commit a bad deed. An ordinary person, on the other hand, rarely even thinks about the meaning of suffering and even more rarely prefers to oppress himself consciously. The very essence of suffering for them has a different meaning: it is associated with injustice and resentment.
Causes of suffering
It is worth noting that suffering does not arise by itself, without apparent reason. What would be the point of a man to torture himself in vain? Suffering comes into our lives when certain circumstances take place, that is, a specific meaning arises.
Unmet expectations
There are often times in life when things go wrong, out of alignment with our inner beliefs and expectations. This happens because other people do not always know and understand what is required of them. In addition, each person puts his own meaning into the events. Meaning is what drives a person, leads him forward, makes him develop. Accordingly, the meaning of life is different for everyone. If we begin to make claims against a loved one who has chosen creativity for himself, and not a family, in this way, a conflict will inevitably arise in the relationship.
Unjustified expectations and give rise to all sorts of suffering. It begins to seem to a person that they forgot about him or deliberately ignored him in order to show how little he means in a particular situation. Sometimes people do not even realize that it is absurd to be offended by a relative or acquaintance, because he has completely different values and priorities.
Betrayal and resentment
They are formed under the influence of unjustified expectations. Suppose a person wanted to get some specific result from interacting with someone, but did not get it. As a result, there is a negative mood, a feeling of resentment. It seems that the opponent betrayed us and destroyed the existing plans, although in reality he may not even be aware that you expected something completely different from him. The feeling of resentment in itself is quite destructive: it does not give a person the opportunity to look for meaning in what happened, but immediately sets him up against his opponent. This is how suffering arises, which is characterized by a lack of mood, frequent tears, and a general disorder of the emotional background.
Focus on the ideal
Most fast way to experience suffering is to create some ideal image for yourself and try to fit reality into it. Disappointment in this case comes very quickly, bringing with it a lack of desire to act further. Heartache often blocks any attempt to make meaningful sense of what is happening. Focusing on the ideal prevents the individual from making plans, enjoying life, and invariably leads to suffering.
Forms of suffering
The form of suffering is the way it is expressed. People can express their feelings in different ways. Moreover, some unconsciously choose for themselves an active form of manifestations, while others choose a passive one. The forms of suffering are divided into two large groups.
open form
This form allows the individual to reduce his suffering to some extent and focus on his own feelings. This happens due to the fact that she does not ignore her emotions, does not suppress them, but actively expresses them. The open form is much healthier. A person in this case will make efforts in order to achieve justice, to defend their own interests. He will not give in to his opponent, he will not engage in self-deception. An open form allows you to quickly cope with the situation, work out existing fears and other feelings.
hidden form
Some people have great difficulty expressing their feelings. In this case, we can talk about a hidden form of suffering. The hidden form is expressed in the fact that a person cannot act openly when it comes to feelings, and therefore suffers even more. The hidden form implies that the person keeps everything in himself, does not share his experiences with others. This form cannot positively affect health: nerve cells, tension and dissatisfaction with the relationship accumulates. A hidden form of suffering is always dangerous for the development of a person, because it does not allow a person to be himself.
Thus, every suffering has its causes, meaning and mode of manifestation. In some ways, sometimes it is even useful to rethink the events that happened in the past, to reassess values. This is necessary in order to let go of resentment, fear, sorrow and live on.
In life, there are situations that negatively affect human behavior. The blame for everything is the deliberate actions of an individual or an entire organization. As a result, the victim experiences not only material damage, but also feels emotional excitement, which, one way or another, can affect the future life of the victim.
All this ultimately gives rise to moral suffering, which is in the nature of moral harm. It consists in the loss of a job, the disclosure of medical secrets, the dissemination of discrediting information that is false, the pain of injury or illness, which was the result of moral damage, and so on.
Mental suffering is a feeling of anxiety after certain events that occurred in the past. This can provoke stress, fear, a sense of shame. Experienced emotions can affect both mood and mental and even physical health.
Moral suffering in the concept of moral harm
Morality is kind of public consciousness and public relations. With the help of a certain type of norms, it regulates human behavior. Such concepts as good and evil, justice, humanity formed the basis of morality. The requirements of moral standards are regulated only by the forces of spiritual influence.
In turn, moral harm is moral suffering that was inflicted with or without intent. They are expressed by feelings of humiliation, loss, excitement, which can leave a mark on the human psyche in the future. The damage in this case can be both non-material in nature and physical torment.
Moral suffering is such emotions that accompany a person when experiencing fear, shame, humiliation, depression, apathy and other negative feelings.
Mental suffering can be the result of the following situations:
- An attempt on the life and health of the victim or his relatives;
- Restriction or deprivation of liberty is unlawful;
- Damage to health;
- Disclosure of medical or personal secrets;
- Slander;
- Copyright infringement;
- Financial losses for non-pecuniary damage.
What does the Civil Code say?
Physical or moral suffering in civil law is called moral harm, which violates the intangible rights and benefits of a person. Intangible goods include life, health, personal dignity, reputation, privacy, family or personal secrets. Intangible rights are copyright, the right to use a name. As well as moral harm can violate the property rights of a person. For moral damage caused, liability may follow, the scope of which is formed by a court decision.
A person receiving moral harm, possibly after certain events, namely:
- Death of loved ones;
- Inability to lead a normal life;
- Job loss;
- Publicity of medical secrecy;
- slander discrediting the reputation of a citizen;
- Physical pain from injury;
- Illness due to experienced negative events.
Moral suffering, affecting the mental and physical health of the individual, determines the nature of physical and moral suffering. Based on this, they can be divided into degrees:
- Light suffering. Short-term negative emotions that do not leave serious consequences in the future;
- Moderate suffering. Long-term, can affect the psycho-emotional balance of the individual, with memories. Do not bear consequences for the future of the victim;
- Heavy. Cause mental disorders and should be accompanied by appropriate treatment;
- Particularly severe suffering. Causes serious damage to a person's personality. As a result, a serious mental disorder can develop;
- The experienced situation is capable of completely breaking the human psyche, accompanied by the disintegration of the personality.
For more full assessment these concepts, there are a number of signs:
- The power of suffering;
- duration;
- Level;
- Content (development of certain complexes that require a different approach to their correction).
And also, when assessing moral damage, the duration of negative experiences and their impact on the future life of the victim are taken into account.
Evidence in court
One claim written by the victim is not enough. It is necessary to present all possible evidence of the experienced moral suffering of the individual. Witness testimony is allowed. It is important to document the fact that a citizen visits a doctor, for example, in case of depression, obsessive fears or other health problems. You can present checks for treatment or, for example, for repair work if damage is done to the property of a citizen.
Moral harm is determined by the intangible benefits that were harmed.
Moral suffering examples for the court (sample):
A citizen can file a lawsuit if someone disseminates information damaging honor and dignity, while he has the right to demand compensation for moral damage, as well as refutation. Statement of claim will be satisfied if the defendant does not prove the truth of his words.
The stress experienced as a result of losing a job, with an unfair dismissal, can serve as a basis for filing a lawsuit against the organization in which the citizen worked.
